The SEI helps advance software engineering principles and practices and serves as a national resource in software engineering, computer security, and process improvement. The SEI works closely with defense and government organizations, industry, and academia to continually improve software-intensive systems. Its core purpose is to help organizations improve their software engineering capabilities and develop or acquire the right software, defect free, within budget and on time, every time.

architectural view
A representation of a set of system elements and the relationships
among them.

attached process
The process associated with a core asset that tells a product
builder how the core asset will be used .in the development of products.

business caseA tool that helps one you make business decisions by predicting
how they will affect an organization. Business cases are used among other
things to determine if pursuing a product line approach will be beneficial and
to determine if a given product line scope makes business sense.

commissionTo contract with another party to build a product or provide a
service.

component
A unit of software composition with contractually specified
interfaces and explicit context dependencies only. A software component can be
deployed independently and is subject to composition by third parties.

concept of operationsDescription of an organization's structure, roles,
responsibilities, communication mechanisms, processes, practices, and policies
that all detail the way the organization operates.

configuration managementA discipline for evaluating, coordinating, approving or
disapproving, and implementing changes in the artifacts that are used to
construct and maintain software systems. An artifact can be a piece of hardware
or software or documentation.

core assetA reusable artifact or resource that is used in the production of
more than one product in a software product line. A core asset may be an
architecture, a software component, a domain model, a requirements statement or
specification, a document, a plan, a test case, a process description, or any
other useful element of a software production process.

core asset baseThe complete set of core assets associated with a given software
product line.

customer interfaceThe description of an organization's connection to its customer(s)
including the people involved, the information flow, the communication content,
and any applicable polices and procedures.

developmentA generic word used to describe how software comes to be.

domainAn area of knowledge or activity characterized by a set of
concepts and terminology understood by practitioners in that area.

domain analysisA process for capturing and representing information about
applications in a domain, specifically common characteristics, variations, and
reasons for variation.

domain understandingExtensive insight and experience in the domains relevant to an
organization's software and/or system endeavors.

externally available softwareExisting software that can be used free, licensed, or purchased.
The options for externally available software include commercial off-the-shelf
(COTS) software, open source software, freeware, and Web-based
services.

Framework for Software Product Line
PracticeAn online product line encyclopedia that describes the essential
activities and practices in which an organization must be competent in order to
reap the maximum benefit from fielding a software product line. The framework
was developed and is maintained by the SEI.

market analysisThe systematic research and analysis of the external factors that
determine the success of a product in the marketplace.

miningFinding, analyzing, and rehabilitating a piece of an existing
software system to serve in a new system for which it was not originally
intended.

platformA word some use to mean the software assets in a product line core
asset base.

practice areaA body of work or a collection of activities that an organization
must master to successfully carry out the essential work of a software product
line.

productDeployed software-intensive system or software.

product constraintsThe set of common and variant features and behavioral attributes
associated with the products in the product line scope.

product lineA set of products that share a common, managed set of features
satisfying the needs of a particular market segment.

product line adoptionAn organization's change to a software product line approach,
which involves developing a core asset base, supportive processes, and
organizational structures; developing products from that asset base in a way
that achieves business goals; and preparing itself to institutionalize product
line practices.

product line adoption planAn organizational plan that describes how product line practices
will be rolled out across the organization.

product line approachThe technical and business practices necessary to build a family
of products as a software product line.

product line architectureA core asset that is the software architecture for all the
products in a software product line. A product line architecture explicitly
provides variation mechanisms that support the diversity among the products in
the software product line.

product line scopeA description of the products that will constitute the product
line or that the product line is capable of including.

production planThe guide to how products in the software product line will be
constructed from the product line's core assets.

production constraintsAny restrictions on the timing, development environment,
processes, or developer skills associated with development of the products in a
software product line.

production capabilityThe core asset base, supportive processes, and tools that enable
the development of the products in a software product line.

production methodThe overall implementation approach that specifies the models,
processes, and tools used in the attached processes across core
assets.

production processThe process used for building all products in a software product
line. The production process is defined by the set of attached processes with
the necessary process "glue" to join them together into a coherent
whole.

production strategyThe overall approach for realizing both the core assets and
products in a software product line.

projectA temporary endeavor aimed at creating a unique product or
service. Typically a project has its own funding, accounting, and delivery
schedule.

requirements engineeringThe use of systematic and repeatable techniques to elicit,
analyze, specify, verify, and manage system requirements.

reuseUsing an item more than once.

scopingAn activity that bounds the behaviors and features of a system or
set of systems. In a product line approach, scoping is the activity that
defines the product line scope.

software architecture
Structure or structures of the system, which comprise software
elements, the externally visible properties of those elements, and the
relationships among them.

software product lineA set of software-intensive systems sharing a common, managed set
of features that satisfy the specific needs of a particular market segment or
mission and that are developed from a common set of core assets in a prescribed
way.

software product line practice patternA description of an organization's context, the product line
problem it is trying to solve, and how a set of practice areas can be used in
concert to solve the problem.